Atlanta, please give Ted Turner his due

For years, Ted Turner called me Marcia.

Finally, one evening I got the courage to tell him my name was Maria. 

It was the night Ted told the world, while sitting next to then-Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell at an event in Buckhead, that he was not going to let his Atlanta Hawks leave downtown Atlanta, contrary to the wishes of his lieutenants. 

Then broke out into song, singing Petula Clark’s song: 

Downtown: Things will be great when you’re downtown,
Don’t wait a minute more, downtown,
Everything is waiting for you, downtown.

During a quick interview after the event, he once again called me Marcia.

“My name is Maria,” I told him.

Immediately, he started singing:

I’ve just met a girl named Maria,

Then he added, “You know, we own that movie.”

From that day forward, whenever Ted would see me, he’d start singing: “I’ve just met a girl named Maria.”

That was Ted. An unpredictable, colorful yet charismatic visionary who put Atlanta on the world map.

(I’m referring to him as Ted rather than the journalistic style of using his last name, partly because of his wonderful autobiography: “Call me Ted.” He was a man of the people.)

For decades, Ted made Atlanta a center of the universe, turning a mid-sized Southern town into an international powerhouse. He did that in multiple ways, but mostly by launching the Cable News Network, CNN for short, on June 1, 1980 with anchors and an army of journalists broadcasting from Atlanta.

Six weeks before CNN was born, I started my full-time journalism career with the Macon Telegraph.

At the launch, Ted proclaimed the network would stay on air until the end of the world. CNN even taped a Doomsday video for its final broadcast.

But he also predicted that newspapers would die within 10 years, making me question my choice of a career.

Twenty years later, when newspapers were still strong, I reminded Ted of his prediction. Ted admitted his timing might have been off, but he stood by his comment. Newspapers eventually would die.

Over the decades of covering Ted and reporting on many of his crazy, out-of-the-box ideas, I realized Ted had an uncanny sense of the future. I learned to take him seriously.

One example. Ted gave $1 million to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund to help save endangered gorillas in eastern Congo. I remember him saying at the time gorillas may be more evolved than humans because they were not destroying our planet. He had a point.

Ted was one of the most complex, multi-dimensional people I’ve ever met, and he was someone who did all he could to make the world a better place.

Bob Hope, a publicist who worked for Ted after he bought the Atlanta Braves in 1976, couldn’t believe the things Ted would agree to do to bring attention to the baseball team.

“Ted told me: ‘Anytime somebody remembers something that you did decades ago, and it didn’t hurt anybody, it was a good idea,’” Hope said. 

Bob and I spoke a couple of times this past week following Ted’s death on May 6 at 87, comparing notes about someone who was larger-than-life for both of us.

A key takeaway. Ted Turner should have won the Nobel Peace Prize for any number of reasons. 

First, there was CNN – the first 24-hour international news network – helped bring the world together through communication. Ted got lots of flack when he went to Cuba to interview Fidel Castro in 1990. Hope remembered Ted being asked in New York: “Who do you think you are interviewing Fidel Castro?”

“I’m a broadcaster. My hobby is world peace,” Ted responded. “I wish everyone’s hobby was world peace.”

“Ted wanted to be Alexander the Great for World Peace,” Hope said. “He wanted to bring the world together through communications.”

Ted also deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Goodwill Games to bring the Soviet Union and the United States on the same playing field following their boycott of the 1980 Olympics.

Then there was his $1 billion commitment to create the United Nations Foundation to make sure the international organization could have a solid footing to keep countries from around the world at the same table.

Ted, working in partnership with former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, announced in 2001 they were launching the Nuclear Threat Initiative to get the world’s superpowers to lay down their arms. I was able to break that international story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In 2010, I remember him telling Galloway students to make sure they are not the last generation. “Bombing people doesn’t teach them anything. Bombs just make people angry, and you end up bombing the wrong people any way,” Turner told the students. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. I like to think of myself as a fighter for peace.”

Ted also deserved to be recognized for being one of the greatest environmentalists in the world – urging people to use green energy, to save endangered species, to take climate change seriously and to protect our planet so it would be a habitable place for humans and all forms of life. 

It was not just talk. Ted started the Turner Foundation, and he acquired about 2 million acres to preserve fragile ecosystems. And there’s also the Captain Planet Foundation.

Literally, Ted was willing to take on the world’s greatest challenges with humility, dedication and passion. And Ted did it all from his base in Atlanta. 

When people questioned Ted about CNN being headquartered in Atlanta rather than New York City, his response was simple: “Why not Atlanta?”

“Ted believed in Atlanta,” Bob Hope said. “Ted made Atlanta a strategic market.”

How sad that almost everything Ted built in Atlanta has been diluted, diminished or disappeared. No more Turner Field. No more CNN Center. No more Turner Broadcasting. The Turner Foundation is not what it was. Turner Classic Movies is now known as TCM.

Not only did Ted never get the Nobel Peace Prize. He also never received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. There were so many recognitions he richly deserved but did not receive.

Ted was one of the most vivacious and outspoken individuals I’ve ever met. I fondly remember his glory days in the 1990s when he was married to Jane Fonda, still led CNN and took the Atlanta Braves from “worst to first.”

So, it was painful to see how he changed during the last eight years of his life as he battled Lewy Body Dementia. 

Thirteen days before his 80^th birthday on Nov. 19, 2018, I was able to sit down for what might have been his last one-on-one interview with a journalist. The interview was such a contrast from Ted in his prime.

All the more reason we can’t let Ted’s legend fade away. Our city, our nation and our world desperately needs Ted’s messages of peace, global communications and environmental stewardship.

“There’s no statue of Ted in Atlanta, and that’s a shame,” Hope said. Remember, it was Hope who was able to raise the money to commission a statue of Hank Aaron hitting the 715 homerun that broke Babe Ruth’s record.

It’s not enough to have 11 blocks in Downtown Atlanta named Ted Turner Drive. 

Ted Turner deserves so much more!

Please Atlanta, let’s remember Ted’s contributions to Atlanta and the world in a meaningful and permanent way.

Here are a few pieces I’ve written over the years, all with a similar theme:

Ted Turner tells Galloway students to make sure they’re not the last generation (Oct. 6, 2010)

Atlanta’s own Ted Turner is deserving of a future Nobel Peace Prize (Oct. 21, 2013)

Happy birthday Ted Turner – one of our living legends (Nov. 19, 2018)

WarnerMedia’s honor of Ted Turner: ‘It’s not enough’ (Dec. 9, 2019)

Ted Turner’s dedication to world peace and saving the earth as critical now as ever (Nov. 18, 2024)